Development: Opportunities vs. Challenges paradox

I spent the 8 first days of May traveling around Valle del Cauca, western Colombia, as part of the project I am coordinating right now at the consulting firm I work for. This project aims to support the Ministry of Education of Colombia to follow up on 45 projects that are being undertaken by universities around the country with two ultimate objectives: to strengthen Colombia’s higher education retention rates and to connect our higher education programs with the real and ongoing needs of the country.

Since the day I came back to Bogotá, I have been organizing all the information gathered during the trip and reporting to the Ministry on how the 45 projects are advancing towards achieving their goals. Because of this, the last few weeks have been really hectic and hence I haven’t been able to blog on a weekly basis. But! The experience has been worth it and from now on I will be able to share with all of you the amazing things that I am discovering about my country’s development reality, not only in Valle del Cauca but in other regions of Colombia as well.

Valle del Cauca (or Cauca Valley) is a region in which sugarcane is the main agricultural product (almost everywhere I went I saw sugarcane plantations). It is also known by its industrial development (the third industrial center in the country is located there) and transportation importance (Buenaventura, the country’s main sea port on the Pacific Ocean, is also located there). Finally, its stunning natural beauty and combination of different types of landscapes (as you can see in the pictures taken during the mentioned trip) are evidence of the immense potential this region has for tourism.

In contrast, the region faces a very difficult social situation that affects higher education retention rates, among many other aspects. Close to 40% of its population is facing poverty and its unemployment levels are close to 13% (National Planning Department figures). This situation poses strong challenges for development and, more specifically, for the region’s higher education institutions. During the trip we visited six universities, three of which were located in Valle del Cauca’s biggest city (and third biggest in the country), Cali, and the other three were located in small cities like Tuluá and Roldanillo, as well as a medium size city like Buenaventura. These universities said the most common problems among their students (regarding the two types of projects that they are developing), besides the lack of economic resources, are the lack of a good academic preparation in high school, and a lack of a careful selection process of the program they are studying. More specifically, the Institutions even mentioned how the parents of some youth had left Colombia some years ago in search for better opportunities in countries like Spain, and because of that these young people are here alone, receiving a lot of money from their parents abroad, which leads to alcohol and drug abuse, among other very difficult problems.

All of this got me thinking. How is it possible that a land that should be able to offer so many opportunities has problems like the ones mentioned before? I guess this is why the most important factor for affecting change is people. Human beings who are capable of visualizing a better future and who are willing to do something now. I personally think that higher education has a very important role in making this happen, because education is one of the most important means through which we can open our minds and souls to new knowledge and experiences. So we have to break the vicious circle and somehow facilitate access to education. The institutions we visited are conducting some very good programs based on two main activities: extra academic support to students who have a higher risk of dropping out because the weaknesses they have in math and communication skills, and psychological orientation to those students who don’t feel prepared to face university life or who have personal problems that are affecting their studies.

What do you think about this situation? Does something similar happen in your country? What are people and institutions there doing to facilitate access to higher education? Moreover, is promoting higher education the real way to go in these cases? I can’t wait to read what you have to say about this.